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Terror Downplayed In Flight 370 Mystery; U.S. Navy: No Debris Spotted Today; Brothers Of Missing American Share Grief; The Search For Malaysia Airline Flight 370

Aired March 11, 2014 - 10:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

COSTELLO: Happening now in the NEWSROOM, breaking overnight. New details of the mystery of Flight 370.

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NIC ROBERTSON: They have questioned the travel agency that sold the tickets.

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COSTELLO: An Iranian identified as one of the two men who boarded the plane with a stolen passport.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Authorities say Pouri Nour Mohammadi was on his way to Germany possibly trying to seek asylum.

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COSTELLO: And this morning, the focus turns to a second new photo as officials now wave off terrorism ties.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: we believe that he is not likely to be a member of any terrorist group.

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COSTELLO: the investigators working around the clock, searching the sea, scouring an area the size of Pennsylvania.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are flying just 500 feet above sea level.

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COSTELLO: Looking for new clues in the mystery of Flight 370. You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thanks so much for joining me. We begin this hour with a search for the Malaysia Airlines jetliner, new developments that may down play terrorism in its disappearance. This morning, police identify the two men who use stolen passports to board that plane. Both are Iranian. Neither is believed tied to any militant groups.

Let's get the latest from Washington in CNN justice correspondent, Pamela Brown.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Carol, we have learned the second passenger who boarded doomed Flight 370 with a stolen passport was a 29-year-old Iranian man by the name of Delavar Sayed Mohammed Reza. He was traveling with a 19-year-old Iranian who according to authorities was traveling to Germany where his mother lives. Interpol secretary general saying it appears the two men with stolen passports tried to get to Europe as part of human smuggling, not terrorism.

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BROWN (voice-over): Investigators have identified the two men traveling with stolen passports on Flight 370. Interpol says the two Iranian nationals flew from Qatar to Kuala Lumpur airport using valid Iranian passports and then boarded the ill-fated flight to Beijing using stolen passports. The two men have been identified as 29-year- old Delavar Sayed Mohammed Reza and 19-year-old Pouria Nour Mohammad Mehrdad.

Authorities believe the younger man was attempting to seek asylum in Europe. They say his mother contacted authorities after he did not arrive in Germany as planned.

RONALD NOBLE, INTERPOL SECRETARY GENERAL: The more information we get, the more we are inclined to conclude that it was not a terrorist incident.

BROWN: Authorities have been pouring through airport surveillance video and thumb prints from the airport to search for possible clues.

Investigators focusing on this Thai travel agency that booked tickets for the two passengers. Thai police telling CNN, an Iranian middle man known as Mr. Ali first contacted the agency on March 1st, looking to buy cheap tickets to Europe for two men on two different flights. That booking expired. So the travel agent rebooked the men on the same flight, Flight 370, on March 6th. Ali paid cash. Two days later, the plane vanished.

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: They could just be garden variety criminals, drug traffickers or people smugglers or fraudsters.

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BROWN: Aside from those two men, all the passports of the other passengers on Flight 370 checked out as legitimate according to Interpol. Again officials saying the more information they get, the more they are focusing on factors other than terrorism as a cause of the plane to go missing -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Pamela Brown reporting from Washington.

Here to talk more about it the investigation and the two passengers linked to those stolen passports, John Magaw. He is the former undersecretary of the Transportation Security Administration, the TSA. He is also the former director of the Secret Service. Welcome, sir.

JOHN MAGAW, FORMER UNDERSECRETARY, TSA: Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: Good morning. So Malaysian authorities seem to be ruling out terrorism. Are they right?

MAGAW: Well, I don't know. We have to see yet. Remember from four days ago, we've been saying, don't tie anything to one. Don't overestimate these two bad passports. How about the crew that handled the aircraft on the ground? The cleaners? The people handling the baggage and all those kinds of things. So you still have to keep both mechanical and the terrorism idea alive so that you continue to do a broad investigation.

You can't -- just like you couldn't use tunnel vision for those two passports. You can't use tunnel vision now and say that eliminates terrorism. It absolutely does not. You have the cleaners. You have the maintenance people. You have the baggage handlers. You have the flight crew. What's to say that a terrorist is not traveling on a valid passport.

So we don't know yet until we find that airplane. So we can't start just down one road. We have to continue the broad path.

COSTELLO: There are still so many questions about these two young men, these two Iranian young men. Authorities say the tickets they bought were bought by a third party who paid cash, an Iranian man named Kazem Ali. What do you make of this?

MAGAW: Well, since 1965 or 1966, the key thing, if you pay cash, if it is bought by a third-party, it is a one-way trip, those raise red flags and then you have to have more tight scrutiny. That would have occurred here in the U.S. and I'm sure in Europe and Singapore and others. They would have really zeroed in on this type of a purchase.

Because that indicates drugs, it indicates human trafficking, illegal fugitives. It indicates all of those kinds of things you have to look at before you put them on that plane.

COSTELLO: But I must say in connection with these young Iranian men, I mean, of the men's mothers was waiting in Germany for him at the airport. She reported him missing. Even this guy who paid cash for the tickets came forward and said, it was me. So does that make you feel better?

MAGAW: Well, they have been eliminated or almost eliminated as the terrorism. I am saying, keep this investigation broad. What about the other 200 and some and their poor families that are suffering through this. You have to look at everybody that touched or was around that plane from the time it landed in Kuala Lumpur until it took off. COSTELLO: So right now, there are a handful of scenarios being floated around. I would like you to listen to something. The Malaysian inspector general said today at a press conference. Here it is.

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KHALID ABU BAKAR, MALAYSIAN INSPECTOR GENERAL OF POLICE: We are looking into four areas. One is hijacking, two, sabotage, three, psychological problem of the passengers and crew and four, personal problem among the passengers.

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COSTELLO: So what he said, he said that we are focusing on four areas, hijacking, sabotage, psychological profile of the passengers and the crew, and personal problems that passengers and crew may have had. He did not say mechanical problems and I thought that was strange. Why do you think that is?

MAGAW: Well, I don't know, but I would like to focus on the one he did say, if he said hijacking, where do you put a big plane like that? How do you hijack something like that and get away with it up until now? It can't happen. It would have to land somewhere. I would think we would eliminate in my mind the hijacking.

But the others are all valid. You still have to look at the mechanical and say, I'm not an engineer. What could have occurred that would not allow -- that flight is moving along, it is talking to the ground on its own. It's talking to Boeing and two or three other stations telling it about the maintenance and how the plane is flying.

How it's doing. So even if the pilots didn't have time to give a mayday, that plane would have told some center somewhere something. That didn't happen.

COSTELLO: Well, maybe that's why they are focusing on psychological problems of the crew or personal problems the crew may have had.

MAGAW: Well, you've had that occur a couple of times in the last three or four or five years where a crew member has had a psychological problem and decided to take action on their own. If they flipped some of the switches, I'm not sure what they can turn on and off, it very well could be that. Don't eliminate anyone here. So you have to look at everyone that had any contact with that plane from the time it landed until the time it took off and look at everybody inside that aircraft.

COSTELLO: John Magaw, former undersecretary of the Transportation Security Administration and former director of the Secret Service. Thanks for your insight this morning. We always appreciate it.

MAGAW: My pleasure.

COSTELLO: As you know, search teams have been scouring tens of thousands of square miles of sea where Flight 370 was last detected. The area includes the Andaman Sea, Gulf of Thailand in the South China Sea. The area is as big as the state of Pennsylvania. CNN's Saima Mohsin is on board one search plane.

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SAIMA MOHSIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This C130 plane carries out regular search and rescue mission operation as far as the Malaysian government is concerned. We are now flying just 500 feet above sea level, very low searching for missing plane MA 370. This is the first time the Malaysian minister for Defense and Transportation and the chief of Defense Force have come out to sea to join the operation. They are looking at all the ships out here from neighboring countries, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia and the USA and Australia have joined the search.

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COSTELLO: The U.S. Navy's Seventh Fleet says no aircraft debris was spotted during today's search. We will keep you posted.

On board that flight, three American citizens. One of them was named Philip Wood. His family who lives in suburban Dallas says they are fighting to hold on to hope even as the news appears more grim with each passing hour. Last night, his brother spoke to CNN's Anderson Cooper.

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ANDERSON COOPER, HOST, CNN'S "AC 360": How are you and your family holding up?

JAMES WOOD, BROTHER OF MISSING PASSENGER: We are doing OK. We are getting through sometimes an hour at a time, sometimes just a minute at a time. We are holding together and we are working on this because of faith. You know, honestly, we're getting through this on our faith and taking it a little at a time. It has been a little bit numbing to be honest.

COOPER: Understandably, James, I know Philip has two sons. One of them is in college. I mean, are you in touch with them constantly? How are they holding up?

WOOD: They are doing OK too. We just saw them a couple days ago. They are with my mom and dad right now. We all process our grief a little different. So they are being a little quieter right now.

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COSTELLO: Philip Wood was an IBM executive that lived in Beijing the last couple of years and was relocating to Malaysia.

This isn't the first time a sophisticated jet has vanished from radar. Up next, why even in the age of satellites and cell phones, officials still cannot find the plane debris.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) COSTELLO: This news just coming in to CNN. It's a pretty shocking claim, Senator Dianne Feinstein, head of the Senate Intelligence Committee accusing the CIA of searching and removing documents from computers the committee used to probe a CIA interrogation program. Feinstein says an internal investigation is now being handled by the Justice Department adding that she has, quote, "grave concerns," CIA agents violated the constitution. We'll have more from Athena Jones. She is digging up more information on that.

Vanished without a trace. This morning, investigators are still trying to figure out what happened to Malaysia Airline Flight 370. Rescue teams have expanded the search beyond the plane's flight path making the investigation even more difficult. But as CNN's Martin Savidge explains, this isn't the first time a vanished jet has left officials scrambling for answers.

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MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Even in our world of satellites and cellphones, giant airliners can disappear at least for a while. The last was Air France Flight 447 in 2009. The Airbus 330 with 228 people aboard vanished beyond radar on a flight from Rio De Janeiro to Paris.

JEAN PAUL TROADEC, DIRECTOR, BEA (through translator): People that go on the planes want to know what happened.

SAVIDGE: It took search crews five days to find any debris and two years to locate the plane and its flight recorders on the ocean floor. Eventually, investigators determined mechanical failure and pilot error were to blame.

Then, there was Egypt Air Flight 990. It too went down mysteriously in 1999 on a flight from New York to Cairo killing 217 people. Like the Malaysia Airliner, Egypt Air 990 was less than an hour into its flight. Cruising at altitude when it suddenly nose-dived into the Atlantic with no distress call.

Eventually, U.S. and Egyptian investigators came to two different conclusions. The NTSB said a co-pilot intentionally crashed the plane. The Egyptians cited mechanical failure. Even when there are witnesses to a plane crash, there can be mystery and controversy.

NTW A800 is proof of that. Upwards of 1500 people say they saw some kind of fire trail in the sky, July 17th, 1996, leading to speculation it was a missile and terrorism that brought down the 747 killing 230 people. Former ABC correspondent, Pierre Salinger, fed the blames of conspiracy incorrectly claiming it was a U.S. Navy ship that shot the plane down.

It was painstaking work by investigators that concluded an explosion in the plane's center fuel tank was the real culprit. In some airline mysteries, it is not how plane went down that grips the public, but how passengers survived such was the case of Flight 571.

In 1972, the charter plane crashed in the Andies Mountains. Of the 45 passengers on board, only 16 would live to tell it. The tragedy was made famous in the 1993 film "Alive" depicting survivors eating the dead to stay alive the 72 days it took for rescue.

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SAVIDGE: In all these examples and more, in just about every case flight disasters that began as mysteries eventually would be found and solved. Experts believe that will also be the case with Malaysia Airlines 370. Martin Savidge, CNN, Atlanta.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, dozens of planes and shipped desperately searched for that missing airliner. An effort to add millions of eyes to the hunt including yours. We'll tell you how next.

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COSTELLO: In Southeast Asia, dozens of planes and ships are searching for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. One satellite imaging company is launching a crowd sourced type of blitz to aid in the search. After the flight's disappearance, Digital Globe, trained its cameras from five orbiting satellites and photographed 1,200 square miles of the search area.

Within an hour, tens of thousands of people flocked to the web site and began scanning those images for any signs of debris or other clues. So how can you help? Let's bring in CNN's Samuel Burke from New York. Tell us how this works.

SAMUEL BURKE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, they say what these crowd sourcing groups lack in expertise, they make up for in numbers. That's why the company, digital globe, turned many of the satellites to the area where the plane disappeared in the hours just after it went off the radars. And then what they did is uploaded all those images to a website called tomnod.com.

Anybody, you, me, a CNN viewer can go and start combing through these images one by one and putting a little mark if they see something on those photos and then continue on to the next photo, but it is by no means a slam-dunk, Carol. People are looking through images and they could see a wave or a part of a cloud or part of a missing airplane.

This is an example of a user who has seen something. He has flagged it up there. They are waiting for the rest of the users to come on to tomnod.com and also analyze that piece of image.

COSTELLO: So who decides if it is worthy enough to pass along to authorities? Who does that?

BURKE: There is an entire system in place on this web site. So we are not just going off what one person is seeing instead once one person see something then they might wait for another 100 people to see something and then pass it on to an expert and then they pass that image to an official if they believe it's something. That way, they are not inundating the officials that are looking for it. If the viewers want to join on this, Carol, I just saw you tweeted a link to it so somebody sitting home can logon and lend their eyes to this search.

COSTELLO: Yes, @carolcnn. It's on my Twitter account and also posted on my Facebook page. So don't worry. But just the last question for you, sometimes these types of things can make it harder for authorities. So how is this site handling that aspect of this?

BURKE: Well, through each disaster that we have go through with these tools and we've been through many of them whether it's the cyclone in the Philippines. They get better at doing it. They put more systems in place. Instead of pouring tons of information over to the officials, they go through check and balance with each image before it is passed on. We are getting better at this each and every time we are looking for a missing person or we are looking with these satellite images, disasters, whether it's an earthquake or a tsunami.

COSTELLO: Samuel Burke, thanks so much. I appreciate it. We'll be right back.

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COSTELLO: Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. So what happened to Flight 370 and the 239 people on board? Right now, dozens of ships and planes from at least ten nations are involved in the search. Overnight, a Cathy Pacific pilot reported seeing large, solid debris floating in the ocean during a flight from Hongkong to Kuala Lumpur. Was it anything? Here is CNN's Jim Clancy.

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JIM CLANCY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This morning, search and rescue teams are expanding their scope, looking beyond Malaysia Airline 370s flight path. CNN's Saima Mohsin, riding along with the crew searching for any sign of the ill-fated flight as the search enters its fourth day. Officials are including the western peninsula of Malaysia and the Strait of Malacca in an expanded search zone.

Scores of aircraft and ships are scouring the area spanning 100 nautical miles, radar data leading some to believe the flight may have reversed course to return to Malaysia in its final moments. Also this morning, Malaysia's civil aviation chief saying pilots from Hongkong spotted large, solid debris in the waters off Vietnam.

AZHARUDDIN ABDUL RAHMAN, MALAYSIAN AVIATION CHIEF: We have n received any confirmation or verification of the debris. Are they from the aircraft or not?

CLANCY: U.S. intelligence sources telling CNN they are less inclined to think the disappearance of the Malaysian Air 777 jetliner had a terror link. While keeping all theories open, the sources say the two men who boarded the flight with stolen passports were more likely trying to gain illegal entry into Europe.